Last Friday, we bid farewell to our friends from Ibaraki Christian High School as they returned home to Japan.

We had an incredible two weeks together, exploring places like the Victoria Market, Melbourne Central, St. Paul’s Cathedral, Cranbourne Botanical Gardens and the Penguin Parade at Phillip Island. The students loved immersing themselves in Australian culture and life at Beaconhills, and our students equally cherished the time spent with them.

A particularly special moment during this year’s student exchange program was when Ayumi Hashimoto, a former Ibaraki student and now an English teacher at the high school, was reunited with her host family – the Byrne family, from 26 years ago when she was an exchange student herself at Beaconhills.